(04-16-2010 02:06 PM)RecoveringHillbilly Wrote: Subtract WNY and the lower Hudson Valley as well. Army has a strong draw down there. That leaves less than 6 Mil. Is that really a negative, ONLY a mere 6 Mil? I give SU all the credit for becoming the biggest athletic program in the state, and a private school at that. But, there is no proof it is dominant in WNY above UB football and Big 4 basketball.
If you wish to define WNY as the city of Buffalo, perhaps. But WNY is larger than that and considering the history of the actual sports channels involved, a case can definitely be made that SU is the dominant college sports program above the mid-Hudson region - which includes Syracuse, Binghamton, Rochester, and Buffalo.
What is now the Times Warner Sports Cable Net started out as the Empire Sports Network in upstate New York which was owned and operated by Adelphia. When budget cuts in the ESN back in 2003 made it difficult to televise any games "outside of Buffalo" Syracuse University severed its ties with ESN and went with Time Warner Sports.
The station which once served the area from Albany to Buffalo went on doing regional sports programming which included Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bills. The only collegiate sports programming of significance that was shown on the network was SU sports and when SU signed with TW it lost those sports fans in Buffalo interested in college athletics at that time.
With Adelphia having financial problems and the NHL going on strike/lockout in 2004, the ESN went belly-up in Buffalo in 2005. TW and Comcast divvied up Adelphia, TW getting the upstate New York region. MSG bought the rights to show Sabres game in Buffalo at that time.
Meanwhile, TWSN was initially only offered in the Syracuse area. Eventually it expanded to Binghamton and in 2006 went into Rochester, still showing all Syracuse programming but adding in Rochester regional sports coverage as well.
Finally, in November of 2007 it went into Buffalo and started operating out of the former ESN studios for Channel 13, again showing all of Syracuse University programming the Syracuse and Rochester stations had in addition to local Buffalo programming.
Please note that SU sports is the only individual college athletics programming that is shown in all four areas.
Another tidbit on this is that TW is part owner of SNY.
And lastly, at the same time the Big Ten was having difficulty getting off the ground in their home states ESPN was having difficulty getting ESPNU subscribers. TW officials credited Syracuse University and Rutgers University fans for getting ESPNU on in New York and New Jersey which resulted in doubling the number of then ESPNU subscribers from 10 million to 20 million.
Think the Bulls could do that.
Quote:I posted the Butler-SU ratings. If SU were ever going to get great ratings in an area, it would certainly be for a Sweet 16 game. Are you not satisfied that they were so low in Buffalo?
"Butler's upset of Syracuse had a preliminary rating of 7.9 on Channel 4"
Buffalo News: Sports on the Air
A 7.9 share for SU/Butler vs a 5.1 share for Cornell/Kentucky is great for a Sweet 16 game.
Cheers,
Neil